Reclaiming hijacked buildings in central Johannesburg

After years of being a no-go zone, owners are reclaiming buildings in central Johannesburg that have been hijacked by criminal gangs.

Transcript

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BEN KNIGHT, PRESENTER: In South Africa, for years some parts of central Johannesburg have been considered no-go areas with a reputation for shocking crime and violence. And trying to take back the heart of that city from gangs that once hijacked entire office blocks has been a slow and sometimes very dangerous process. There have been some big successes, but still one in 20 buildings in that city remain hijacked. For the past year, our Africa correspondent Ginny Stein's been following the attempts by both owners and residents to regain control of the city.

GINNY STEIN, REPORTER: Johannesburg, 2013. One in 20 buildings in the city centre remains hijacked, either by criminal gangs or by tenants. When white racist rule ended in South Africa, Johannesburg changed overnight. People allowed for the first time to live where they wanted flocked to the city looking for work. In the crush, the city centre descended into lawlessness. Gangs took over buildings, collecting rent for themselves at gunpoint from tenants.

GREG VERMAAK, LAWYER: People walked away from them, people emigrated, people feared coming to their buildings in town. Those were the years when heavies took over these buildings, started collecting rent, put people into commercial buildings for residential purposes.

GINNY STEIN: The Diamond Exchange building is as far removed from its glamorous past as imaginable. Tensions have escalated between poor tenants and criminal gangs.

People here have seen much violence, but the suicide deaths of two young men have shaken many to the core. Respected church leader Bishop Paul Verryn has been asked by residents to preside over a healing ceremony.

PAUL VERRYN, METHODIST CHURCH: The struggles that have happened in this place in these last months, Lord, have brought great sadness. Now we're going to go right to the seventh floor and then you'll guide me as to where we must do the work.

GINNY STEIN: In a country where the rich live behind walled gates to protect their wealth, life inside this building is a lesson in the other end of the extreme. Hundreds of people live here, but there's no running water, only occasional electricity and not one functioning toilet.

MAN: We are paying for these old buildings. Not even a single service of theirs they are rendering to us. There is no security. The water is contaminated.

GINNY STEIN: While legal battles rage over ownership and residents await to find out if they can stay, lawful tenants are being asked to pay even more to live in this most squalid of buildings.

PAUL VERRYN: And so we might also have to ask ourselves if we want the building clean, what have we got to do? If we want security, what have we got to do? We're not gonna wait for those people. You understand?

MAN II: On top of the amount we are giving them ...

PAUL VERRYN: We might have to do that.

GINNY STEIN: This is a building which has changed hands many times and not often lawfully.

WOMAN: They used to collect the money by themself, room by room, two men with a gun.

GINNY STEIN: Did you pay?

WOMAN: Yes, because we are afraid if you didn't pay, they chase you out.

GINNY STEIN: Renney Plitt, whose housing company specialises in low-cost housing, fought for five years to get the building he bought. The first shock came the first day he bought it.

RENNEY PLITT, MD, AFHCO HOUSING COMPANY: In fact we had anticipated we were only buying this building on the corner and they came back and said, "Well actually you bought it when you bought the front building, you bought the entire city block at the top."

GINNY STEIN: It was only once he stepped inside that he saw how much it had deteriorated.

RENNEY PLITT: Living in here, we don't know the real number, but I would imagine between 300 and 500. You know, of course mixed in amongst that were the blind and the children, babies, elderly. It's just crazy. ... At the moment you have quite a number of hijacked buildings. Still one over the road here's hijacked, the one next door to that is hijacked. But again, if we look at the corner, that's recently been rehabilitated. There was a fire in that building. It's been rehabilitated. I don't know who the owner is, but he's done a beautiful job.

GINNY STEIN: Greg Vermaak is a lawyer who has worked with the council and building owners for more than a decade.

GREG VERMAAK: Every single file in my office is an eviction file. Of those, 70 per cent are inner-city eviction files. Notwithstanding that, I'm the greatest optimist there is for the inner-city. I believe in inner city regeneration. I've seen it with my own eyes over the last 10 or 11 years.

GINNY STEIN: Across town, former domestic worker Josephine Tshaboeng has turned a bad building into a good business. Tracing the owners of a building which she first saw abandoned was her first step towards ownership.

JOSEPHINE TSHABOENG, HARMONY HOUSE LANDLORD: I started being a caretaker here so I didn't blame the people because you will never let the domestic worker - a former domestic worker come and tell you that she bought the building.

GINNY STEIN: But her tenants threw her out. She feared for her life, but fought through the courts to get it back.

Now it's a girls' hostel for students at the nearby University of Johannesburg.

A new Johannesburg is evolving out of its past. But in the rush to succeed, South Africa's leaders are being called on not to forget those with least.

PAUL VERRYN: This is in actual fact the essence of what the struggle is in South Africa. At one stage the issue was something around colour. But that colour happened also to have a far deeper struggle and that is the struggle about the obscenely opulent and the devastating poor.